


What Cannot Be Known

by Thorinsmut



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Complete, Established Relationship, M/M, Mentions of Prostitution, Nwalin Gift Exchange, One Shot, Trust, a little bit of alcohol consumption, a wee bit angsty, cuddle-smut, mentions of assassination attempts, mentions of illness and starvation, secrecy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 12:25:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8979628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thorinsmut/pseuds/Thorinsmut
Summary: There is a certain Inn on the cheap overside of Ered Luin where no one asks questions, and Nori and Dwalin sometimes meet.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mianewarcher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mianewarcher/gifts).



> for Mianewarcher, since nobody seems to be able to get ahold of the person assigned her gift, and she definitely deserves to have a present! Mia asked for secret meetings, which turned a little angsty, but ended sweet.  
> I hope you enjoy!

There was a certain Inn, on the cheap overside of Ered Luin, where they didn't ask questions. Dwalin could have afforded better, a safer room in deeper rock, but the tired-eyed dwarf who took his silver never questioned it. Dwalin did not look too closely at the gambling tables, at the pleasure workers plying their trade without a guild license, at the trinkets been bought and sold in the quieter corners. He simply ordered a large dinner, with several bottles of good mead, sent up to the specific room he always rented.

The _amount_ of food and mead he ordered went unquestioned too. After all, Dwalin was a big dwarf with big appetites. He thanked the harried lad who brought his dinner up, slipped him an extra coin, and barred the door from the inside.

Dwalin set the meal (bread and cheese, with a little meat that had been roasted long enough to be tender) out on the rickety little table, and sat on the edge of the bed to wait.

Earlier that day he'd found a small square of lavender silk in his pocket, and he twisted it idly around his fingers. Once upon a time it had been a ratty old ribbon, nearly too worn to be lavender anymore. Then a scrap of lavender cloth, too small and oddly shaped to be used for mending. It was a good sign that the cloth was fine and new, these days.

There was a tap on the door—not the front door of the room, the one adjoining a side room. knock... knockknock... knock. The agreed pattern. It was simple enough, but unlikely anyone else would knock it at random. Dwalin rapped on the table with his knuckles in answer. knockknock... knockknock.

The side door opened, its lock picked without a sound, and Nori squeezed through it into the room with Dwalin. His elaborate hair was messy, as if he'd been doing a lot of running and climbing, his eyes lined and tired, but he smiled at Dwalin as he closed the door behind himself.

"Aww, you got me dinner," Nori teased. "Always the gentledwarf."

Dwalin just smiled and opened them each a bottle of mead. Nori perched on the three-legged stool, and Dwalin sat on the bed, and together they enjoyed the meal, simple as it was.

That Nori would sit and eat the food with Dwalin these days was also a good sign. The first few times he wouldn't, preferring to wrap it up and stash it away for later. When Dwalin found out why—that it wasn't just a funny quirk and Nori was taking it all home to an ill mother who couldn't work and a baby brother who cried with an empty belly—he'd promised to go by the next day with food for them. And Nori, scrawny little Nori with his cheeks hollowed with his own hunger, had told him that was fine for tomorrow, but Ori was still hungry _tonight_.

Dwalin had made up a story for the innkeeper about having spilled his food in the fire and got a second loaf of bread and a bowl of stew. Nori had tucked the bread into his jacket with the rest, and gobbled the stew down like the starving young dwarf he was.

Dwalin had personally brought supplies to Nori's home, just beans and barley and a little salted meat, _no one_ had much to spare in those days. Thorin and Lady Dis had made sure Dori's apprentice fees were waived, that Ori's education was compensated, that their mother could see a healer to ease her pain if they could not heal her of the dragon cough.

There were benefits to having a family member in the King's employ, even of a King and a people in exile.

"You wanted to tell me something?" Dwalin asked quietly, when their meal was done and all that was left was to savor the mead. He kept his words neutral enough that nobody overhearing would think it strange, did not mention the King. Not that being overheard was likely. Someone had hired one of the pleasure workers from downstairs and the pair was enthusiastically enjoying themselves across the hallway.

Nori nodded and joined Dwalin on the bed, leaning against his shoulder with a tired sigh. Dwalin wrapped an arm around Nori's back, holding him close.

"I was hearing chatter about Lord Bavorr again," Nori whispered in Dwalin's ear. "So I got in with his seneschal by giving him a _very_ good deal on a few barrels of stolen Dorwinion wine. That got me in. He's been collaborating with Lord Ginnarr and the Men of Forlindon to make an artificial shortage."

"A shortage of what?" Dwalin asked, when Nori paused to take a drink.

"Everything," Nori whispered back, eyes flint-hard with anger. "Wool, wheat, salted cabbage. Necessities. They want us to freeze and starve to put gold in their pockets. I got into Ginnarr's offices and found the shipment information, so you can break it up before it gets bad."

Dwalin nodded, and listened carefully to everything Nori told him. There was nothing in writing, nothing could be official for both Nori's safety and the royal family's. Dwalin trusted Nori's information, and Nori trusted Dwalin and through him Thorin to see to the good of all Erebor's refugees.

The first time Nori came to Dwalin it had been desperation. A late evening having a smoke alone on the outskirts of Ered Luin, and a skinny hand grabbing his arm with more strength than someone so worn-down looking should possess.

"You're friends with Prince Thorin, right?" Nori had asked, eyes wide and wild under his impressive hair. "They're going to kill him. I overheard."

Dwalin had taken a chance to trust Nori's information, and he and Thorin had broken up an assassination plot from someone who blamed _him_ for the horror of azanulbizar.

Nori had come to Dwalin because, as hard as life had used him and his family, he knew when something was just _wrong_. He'd been hired as an informant from that day onward. He was a pickpocket and a thief, and he was the King's dwarf through and through. Just like Dwalin. Their loyalties ran deep, and side by side.

And no one could ever know of their meetings, lest that fact be discovered. Nori could get information no one else could, because on the surface he sneered at the rule of law and mocked the utility of kings. Not even his own family knew.

"Thank you," Dwalin said when Nori's recitation of information was over, and handed back the little square of lavender silk. It would find its way back into Dwalin's pocket next time Nori needed to pass information along. "Do you have to run?"

Sometimes Nori could only stay as long as it took to eat, but he shook his head, leaning closer against Dwalin. "Not tonight. I can stay."

"Me too, if you'd like," Dwalin offered. Lord Bavorr's plot wasn't so urgent that he had to deal with it at once.

The corners of Nori's eyes crinkled up with a smile as he tugged Dwalin's head down to kiss him. "Of _course_ I'd like," he murmured.

Their bodies came together easily, warm and familiar. This trust and desire had built up between them slow and steady and solid as bedrock. Dwalin knew Nori's kisses, their heat and hunger, and how to make Nori lose all his artifice and control so all he could do was gasp desperately against Dwalin's lips. Nori knew every touch that made Dwalin melt and shudder. Tonight the coupling was simple and sweet, bare skin and long slow touches. A little of Nori's favorite salve in Dwalin's hand, stroking them together smooth and long, brought them off together.

Dwalin nuzzled under Nori's beard to kiss his neck when they were both done and luxuriating in the afterglow. "Sleep," he urged, stroking Nori's chest and down his side to help him relax. "I'll be right here."

Nori yawned and nodded. He'd curled himself onto his side, on the wall side of the bed, by the time Dwalin blew the lamp out. Dwalin slipped into bed behind him, turned back to back like shieldmates guarding each other from all danger.

Once, Nori hadn't trusted anyone enough to sleep near them. When he finally trusted Dwalin enough for it, he'd only been able to sleep with Dwalin sitting upright with his axes ready to protect him. Now, years later, they could share this.

"Always sleep best with you at my back," Nori mumbled into the pillow.

"Sleep." Dwalin reached back to pat Nori's hip behind himself. "I'm on watch."

Nori made a soft agreeing sound, and his breaths slowed toward sleep as Dwalin settled himself into the light guarded drowse any good soldier learned, resting but ready to react to anything.

Dwalin would be tired as he went about his duties tomorrow, but if this was what the King's spy needed of the King's soldier, if this was what _Nori_ needed of him, then Dwalin would do it gladly any night he was asked.


End file.
